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The Trademark Trial and Appeal Board has probably never in its illustrious history received so much publicity as it has over the last week, since issuing its opinion in the “Washington Redskins” case. Too bad most people hear “Patent Office” and really don’t know what the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board is, or have … Read more

Wow, there is a lot of information out there about the “Redskins” case. A lot of misinformation, that is. From the first crawl I saw last night on Wednesday Night Baseball — ESPN’s Bottom Line, to Google alerts, wire services, leading newspapers and websites — most of the stories got one thing right: the Trademark Office ordered cancellation … Read more

By now, everyone has read that the Trademark Office issued its long-awaited decision, ruling that the word “Redskins” was disparaging to a substantial composite of Native Americans, and as a result, ordering six of their trademark registrations to be cancelled. This is a very lengthy and serious 99 page analysis. But most importantly, Congress … Read more

Today, the Supreme Court has ruled that Coca-Cola’s Minute Maid subsidiary is not permitted to use FDA regulations to shield it from a lawsuit by the makers of POM for unfair competition. While Supreme Court decisions are always newsworthy, this decision is not settling some juicy debate within false-advertising and trademark law. Coca-Cola tried to … Read more

Some of the hub-bub may have died down about Taylor Swift and the trademark infringement lawsuit regarding “Lucky 13.” What really to make of it? Swift’s time to answer is fast approaching, but nothing is yet on file with the United States District Court in Southern California. Taylor “Swift’s Business Empire” (that is the Plaintiff’s wording) is defined … Read more

Here’s an interesting conundrum. Can the owners of the Park City (Utah) ski resort face competition for the name Park City? Hypothetically, it could become an issue. This week, the court in Utah, as you may have read, has ruled on the long-raging battle between the Park City ski area operated by the company Park … Read more

In our introductory post, Jess touched on “common law” trademark rights. Most business owners (I daresay all) are familiar with the concept of a trademark. The basic idea being that registering a trademark protects it from being used by other businesses. However, the trademark concept that most have in mind relates to Federal trademark registration through … Read more